NOVEL NEXT
Chapter 37
This matter can be considered over at Wen Qian's place, now it is a peaceful and prosperous era, she can only be a little sarcastic.
If the world becomes chaotic in the future, and they dare to appear in front of her again, Wen Qian will definitely make them regret it.
A few days later, it was the Beginning of Winter. After the Beginning of Winter, Wen Qian recorded the sound of winter thunder in her white noise recorder.
It is said that winter thunder is not a good omen, so Wen Qian checked some relevant axioms, and none of them had anything good to say about winter thunder.
Some of the descriptions of winter thunder even mentioned corpses strewn all over.
Similarly, Uncle Chen and Auntie Chen said it was not a good sign. Although no one starves to death these days, they were still very worried that if the rain or cold weather is bad, their wheat would be done for.
The wheat grown here is winter wheat, so even if it snows, it would only be a light snow to cover it to reduce pests and diseases, which are considered auspicious signs of a good harvest.
However, if it gets too cold and the wheat cannot survive the winter and freezes to death directly, wouldn't all their previous hard work go to waste?
Sigh, a day's work in the fields leads to a day's worries.
While they were worried about surviving the coming winter, the north had already been in winter for a long time, and the heating was already turned on.
The news also reported that this winter would be colder than usual, reminding everyone to prepare for the cold.
Wen Qian had already lit up the stove at her home, she even stacked firewood in the empty rooms, so she wouldn't need to go out for firewood later.
Wen Qian lived alone, she took a small pot and cooked on the stove, inside were pork belly and white radish. The radish was sweet, and she threw in some tender greens she stored earlier to blanch, eating alone leisurely.
Of course, she would also turn these into videos to post online to earn a little extra money, otherwise she wouldn't be able to earn any later.
Some netizens expressed that they envied her lifestyle, carefree and unrestrained, she must be well off financially right?
Wen Qian thought about it and figured no one else would have spent all their money like her, she really did store a lot of food, which was why she had no money left.
Having nothing much to do, Wen Qian set a goal for herself to exercise her body. She followed along with the exercise videos on her phone and practiced moves from the unlimited wrestling tutorial book.
With food stores set for years, she had no worries for the foreseeable future, so she should start ensuring her personal safety.
As the weather grew colder, waves of frost finally wiped out the struggling greens.
When it was just frost at Wen Qian's place, the north had been in winter for a long time, with more than one snowfall already. Some posted videos online of snowball fights, all kinds of thick snow pictures, making many southerners rather envious.
However, the weather forecast showed that this winter would be exceptionally cold, reminding everyone to prepare supplies for the winter in advance.
Wen Qian listened to the news every day. She also looked up past meteorological records for An Province.
Compared to last year and the year before, this summer broke heat records.
The current rate of cooling was also faster than previous years.
Wen Qian also searched for records of extreme weather events, An Province’s coldest winter, warmest winter, hottest day, and highest annual rainfall on record.
She considered the situation in the most extreme scenarios, and even brought it up in conversations with Fang Ya.
In her opinion, extreme referred to events that even elders would say it’s the first time seeing it in their long lives.
Ten years ago, Liuh Village had a major flood, with water reaching two meters high on street level houses.
When they talk about that major flood now, they would still say even in their 70 years of life they’ve never seen the likes of it.
In Wen Qian’s dreams, a heavy snow would be something old folks living over 100 years would not get to see.
At the Chen family's door, a few elders were chatting about a snowstorm that happened over ten years ago.
At that time, heavy snowfall was experienced even in southern regions, stranding many people unable to go home for New Year celebrations due to the snowstorms
However, it seemed that rural villages were not majorly affected back then. The only impacts were poorer mobile signals occasionally, and temporary blackouts, though power would be quickly restored.
Another effect was people got bored being stuck at home. Some even went to the mountains to catch wild chickens, since after the snowfall, traces of the wild chickens became very noticeable.
However, winter blackouts were nothing much in rural villages, as they mainly relied on burning firewood to stay warm.
Just the amount of firewood and leaf stalks Wen Qian stored at home was already astonishing to Fang Ya.
She thought it was only elders who hoarded stuff, she didn’t expect there was such a young hoarding enthusiast here.
But Wen Qian said she wasn’t the only young person who prepared in advance like this, and she even gave Fang Ya a survival skills handbook.
However, with the description of harsh winters in the news, Fang Ya felt stocking more supplies for winter was important.
She also told her husband who worked in the city about this. Her husband jokingly asked if her parents didn’t already hoard enough. But Fang Ya felt preparing some non-perishables was always good for New Years.
As such, Fang Ya took over the cooking duties, allowing her mother-in-law to go to town to shop, and took out her own private savings for her in-laws to prepare for New Years.
Fang Ya meant that if they ended up with too much to finish by themselves, they could bring the leftovers back to the city to continue eating.
Usually when Fang Ya visited Wen Qian her mother-in-law would personally accompany her, worried about her falling or something alone on the way.
Actually the slopes here were quite gentle. Her worries stemmed from the recent frost and and slippery ice only.
At Wen Qian’s place, Fang Ya saw her sun-drying cabbage leaves, preparing to make pickled cabbage, removing bad outer leaves first before letting the sun dry it slightly to remove some moisture.
It would then be placed in a vat with water and salt, pressed under rock weights completely submerged. Lactic acid bacteria would turn the cabbage sour.
Once fully pickled, it could be taken out, rinsed and stir fried, or cooked with lean meat, or added to hot pot, for a very refreshing appetizer.
Seeing Wen Qian had pickled a small tub of pickled cabbage, Fang Ya was rather surprised.
She wondered how long it would take her to finish that amount alone?
Wen Qian laughed and said she could give some to her friends, or bring it back if she returned to the city.
Hearing this, Fang Ya was no longer puzzled.
The north also had the habit of stocking up cabbage, but in even larger quantities.
Southern rural areas normally aren’t as cold in winter, so not a lot needed to be preserved.
In fact, Wen Qian didn’t just pickle cabbage at home. She previously purchased various pickling jars using methods from other provinces to pickle quite an assortment stored in her shed.
She could take them out and eat whenever she wanted.
Especially pickled vegetables with spicy flavors were simply amazing meal accompaniments.
Fang Ya wasn’t skilled in this area, but she showed her mother-in-law the videos. Her mother-in-law said she could give it a try.
Hence Auntie Chen also experimented with pickling things she didn’t usually pickle in previous years.
In the morning, Wen Qian saw that a layer of ice had formed on top of the water vat left outside.
The ice gradually thickened. So Wen Qian placed rows of shallow plastic containers she previously bought online to store things, on the flat house roof, now using them to store water.
Initially only a shallow level of water was added. Wen Qian collected the frozen ice blocks the next morning.
As the weather grew colder, the ice blocks also grew thicker.
She stored quite a lot of ice bricks like this.